Israeli Settlers Torch Dozens of Palestinian Olive Trees

Nablus, MINA – Israeli settlers on Monday torched dozens of olive trees in Burin town, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus, according to witnesses.

They said that a group of settlers set fire to dozens of olive trees belonging to Akram Omran in the southern part of the town, Wafa reported.

The settlers came from Yitzhar, a colonial settlement notorious for its hardcore religious community.

Burin town has been the scene of frequent settler attacks, including cutting down fully grown olive trees, setting fire to fields and crops, stealing the olive harvest, attacking olive harvesters and foreign volunteers, and hurling Molotov Cocktails toward houses in the town.

Settler violence against Palestinians and their property is commonplace in the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities.

It includes arsons of property and mosques, stone-throwing, uprooting of crops and olive trees, attacks on vulnerable homes, among others.

The number of settlers living in Jewish-only colonial settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law has jumped to over 700,000 and colonial settlement expansion has tripled since the signing of Oslo Accords in 1993.

Israel’s nation-state law, passed in July 2018, enshrines Jewish supremacy, and states that building and strengthening the colonial settlements is a “national interest.”. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)